Common Property Trees: Who Decides and Who Pays?

A tree on common property looks like a maintenance item until the day it becomes a question of money and authority. It blocks a television signal. It drops a limb onto a carport. It outgrows the courtyard it was planted in. The moment someone proposes doing something about it, two questions surface that are easy to tangle together: who is allowed to make the call, and who has to pay for it.

These two questions came up twice in a single week of Australian strata Q&A, once in Queensland and once in Western Australia, which is a fair sign of how common they are. The specifics turn on each state's legislation, but the underlying logic is consistent enough that once you separate authority from cost, most tree problems become straightforward.

The two questions inside every tree dispute

Authority is about decision rights. A tree on common property is the scheme's responsibility, but "the scheme" is not one person. Depending on the work, the right decision-maker might be the committee acting on its own, or it might be all owners voting at a general meeting. Getting this level wrong is how schemes end up with a removed tree and a contested decision.

Cost is about who funds the work once it is approved. Common property maintenance is normally paid from the administrative fund, which every owner contributes to. But not every tree-related cost is a common property cost, and the line is not always where people assume it is.

There is also a third actor that neither question fully contains: the local council. Tree-protection laws, significant-tree registers and vegetation overlays apply regardless of what the owners decide internally. A scheme can have perfect internal authority and still need a permit before a single branch comes down.

1. 01
   Is the tree on common property or in a lot?
2. 02
   Is this maintenance, or removal?
3. 03
   Committee call, or an owners' vote?
4. 04
   Who pays: the whole scheme, or one owner?

Queensland: maintenance the committee can do, removal it usually can't

Under Queensland's body corporate framework, a tree on common property is the body corporate's responsibility to maintain. That includes the ordinary upkeep: pruning, lopping, clearing dead wood and keeping the tree from becoming a hazard. Routine maintenance of this kind generally falls within what a committee can authorise and pay for, subject to its spending limits.

Removal is a different category of decision. Taking a tree out permanently is not maintenance; it is a change to the common property, and it tends to attract a higher level of approval. In practice that often means a general meeting decision rather than a committee one, both because the cost can exceed committee spending limits and because removing an established tree is the kind of permanent, contestable change that owners are entitled to vote on. When in doubt, the safer path is to put removal to a general meeting, where an ordinary resolution settles the question and protects the committee from a later challenge.

Who pays for the TV antenna booster?

Here is the cost question in its purest form. A common property tree grows tall enough to interfere with television reception, and someone wants a signal booster installed. Who pays?

The answer turns on what the tree is interfering with. If the affected antenna is common property, a shared master system serving the building, then both the tree and the antenna are the body corporate's responsibility, and addressing the problem is a common property cost paid from the administrative fund. That might mean pruning the tree, or it might mean improving the shared system.

If instead an individual owner wants a booster purely to improve reception inside their own lot, and the equipment serving them is their own rather than part of the common property system, the cost typically sits with that owner. The dividing line is the same one that runs through the whole topic: is the affected infrastructure common property or lot property, and is the benefit shared by everyone or enjoyed by one lot? Common and shared points to the body corporate. Individual and private points to the owner.

Western Australia: repair is the council's job, removal may be the owners'

Western Australia reaches similar conclusions by a slightly different route. The strata company must keep common property in good condition, and the day-to-day business of maintenance is run by the council of owners. Pruning a common property tree, clearing a genuine hazard or repairing damage falls comfortably within that maintenance role, and the council can authorise it.

Removing a healthy tree is where it changes. Removal is more than maintaining what exists; it alters the common property. That generally lifts the decision above the council and into a resolution of the owners at a general meeting. A council that removes a healthy, established tree on its own initiative is making a decision that was not really its to make alone, and an aggrieved owner can say so afterwards.

The clear exception is danger. A dead, diseased or genuinely hazardous tree is a maintenance and safety matter, not a discretionary improvement. Removing a real hazard is something the council can and should authorise promptly, ideally backed by an arborist's assessment so the basis for the decision is on the record.

The council overlay both states share

Whatever the scheme decides internally, local government has the final say on whether a tree can come down. Many councils protect trees over a certain size, maintain significant-tree registers, or apply vegetation overlays that require a permit before removal or even substantial pruning. These rules apply to common property trees just as they apply to any other.

The practical consequence is simple: confirm the council position before you commit to removal, not after. A scheme that votes to remove a tree, hires a contractor, and only then discovers the tree is protected has created a far more expensive problem than the one it set out to solve.

Working out who pays

When the work is approved, the funding question almost always resolves through one principle: cost follows benefit.

Situation	Who pays
Common property tree, shared benefit (pruning, hazard removal, general upkeep)	The whole scheme, from the administrative fund
Individual lot, individual benefit (private equipment, work for one lot's convenience)	That owner
Damage caused by a common property tree (roots lifting a slab, a falling limb)	Whoever is responsible for the tree, usually the body corporate or strata company

Damage follows responsibility rather than benefit. If a common property tree's roots lift a slab or a falling limb damages a structure, the cost of dealing with the tree sits with whoever is responsible for it, which for a common property tree is the body corporate or strata company. Insurance may respond depending on the cause, which is a separate question worth checking against the policy. Our guide to water leaks and who pays walks through the same common-property-versus-lot logic for a different kind of damage.

A short playbook before you touch the chainsaw

1. Establish ownership. Is the tree on common property or within a lot? Everything downstream depends on this answer, so confirm it against the plan rather than assuming. Our explainer on common lot versus common property covers how to tell.
2. Classify the work. Pruning and hazard clearance are maintenance. Removing a healthy tree is an alteration. The two sit at different decision levels.
3. Check the threshold. Does the cost or the nature of the work exceed what the committee or council can authorise alone? Our strata committee powers guide sets out where those limits usually fall.
4. Check the council. Permits, protection orders and significant-tree registers come before any cutting, not after.
5. Decide at the right level. Maintenance can usually be a committee or council decision. Removal usually belongs at a general meeting.
6. Record everything. Minute the resolution, keep the arborist report, file the quotes, and note who is paying and why.

That last step does more work than it looks like it should. Most tree disputes are not really about the tree; they are about a decision nobody can fully reconstruct a year later. A clear record of who decided what, on what basis, and from which fund is what turns a recurring argument into a closed matter.

Hazard versus amenity

Not every complaint is a hazard. A tree that drops leaves into a courtyard is an amenity issue. A tree with a split leader over a car space is a safety issue. Committees that treat both as "the neighbour being difficult" either over-cut healthy trees or leave a real risk standing.

Get an arborist who will say, in writing, whether the tree is structurally unsound, whether pruning will manage the risk, and whether removal is justified. A one-line "remove tree" quote from a general contractor is not that report. Councils and later owners will ask for the arborist, not the Facebook photos.

If the tree is healthy and the complaint is shade, views or leaves, you are in alteration territory. That usually needs a general meeting, and in many council areas a permit even then. "We have always trimmed it hard every autumn" is not a legal characterisation. Hard topping that kills the tree can still be an unauthorised removal with a replacement order attached.

Roots, slabs and the lot next door

Roots from a common-property tree that lift a lot's courtyard slab are usually the scheme's problem, because the tree is. Roots from a lot tree that lift common driveway concrete are usually that owner's problem. Confirm the trunk location on the plan before anyone accepts a bill.

Neighbouring land is a third category. A tree on the next Torrens title, or on council land, is not "common property" because it sheds onto your driveway. Different statutes deal with trees that affect adjoining land — in NSW the Trees (Disputes Between Neighbours) Act 2006 is the usual pathway, not a strata by-law. Do not spend owners' money removing a tree the scheme does not own.

If a lot owner planted on common property years ago "with a nod from the then chair", the tree is still common property unless a by-law or exclusive-use grant says otherwise. Informal permission is how schemes inherit both the asset and the invoice.

Money: which fund, whose benefit

Routine pruning and dead-wooding are admin-fund maintenance. Removal and replacement of a large tree is often a capital item, especially if it is in the landscape plan or will be replaced with a mature specimen. Put the large jobs in the capital works or sinking-fund plan so they are not a surprise special levy.

If only one lot wants the tree gone for a view, and the arborist says it is sound, that lot can offer to fund removal and a council-compliant replacement. The meeting can still say no. A private cheque does not override a significant-tree register.

Insurance may respond to sudden storm damage. It will not usually pay to remove a tree the scheme had been warned was failing. An unanswered arborist report is how a claim becomes "failure to maintain".

Neighbours, by-laws and solar

A common-property tree that now shades a lot's solar array is a conflict of two lawful uses. Neither automatically wins. Check whether a by-law, development consent or sustainability motion already deals with it. Do not let one owner self-help with a saw. That is both a common-property breach and, often, a council offence.

If owners want a standing rule — no new large species in a narrow setback, or a cyclic prune every three years — write it as a by-law or a minuted maintenance standard, with a species list and a budget line. Case-by-case shouting at each AGM is how the same fig tree appears on four consecutive agendas.

After any removal, photograph the stump, keep the permit, and note the replacement species and warranty. The next owner will ask why there is a gap in the courtyard. A missing replacement condition is how "temporary" becomes a bare common-property strip and a new fight.

If the work is near a boundary, tell the adjoining owner before the arborist arrives. A surprise chainsaw is how a maintainable prune becomes a council complaint and a neighbour dispute on top of the strata one. Offer the arborist report. You do not need their permission to maintain common property. You do need to stay inside the permit and not drop limbs onto their roof.

Wildlife and hollows change the job. A possum box or a delayed prune in nesting season is cheaper than a council complaint or a wildlife carer on site. Ask the arborist. Put any seasonal condition in the works order so the contractor cannot "finish the job" in August when the permit said after February.

For a row of identical street trees, decide a cycle once — species, height, interval — and budget it. Re-litigating each trunk every AGM is how one owner gets a butchered canopy and the next owner gets a bill to replace it.

A dropped limb that injures someone or crushes a car is a common-property maintenance story if the scheme had been warned. Keep the last two arborist reports even if you did not act on every recommendation. Insurers and tribunals read the file you already had, not the file you wish you had.

If owners want the tree gone and council says no, stop. A refusal is the answer. Do not "prune" it to a pole. That is removal by another name, and it is how schemes pay twice: once for the illegal work and once for the replacement order.

Photograph the tree before and after any prune, with a date. The next complaint that "they destroyed my tree" is answered by the photo, not by a memory of the meeting.

Where the record lives

Authority, cost, council approval and the paper trail all point back to the same need: a single place where the building's decisions and documents actually live. The resolution that approved the removal, the arborist report that justified it, the quotes that priced it, and the call on who paid are worth nothing if they are scattered across inboxes and personal drives.

UnitBuddy is software for the building itself, owned and run by the people who live in and own it. The minutes, the resolutions, the contractor quotes and the maintenance history sit together and stay with the building rather than walking out the door when arrangements change. When the next tree question arrives, and it will, the answer to "what did we decide last time" is already there.

Keep the scheme file in one place the committee and the manager can both open. Features, pricing, or book a tour.